Like a Moth to a Flame
by Malhearst
Summary: Lily and James feel trapped in the Shrieking Shack, so they play a game. A game with horrible consequences.


**Author's Note:** Written for QLFC (Season 4, Round 5). Position: Keeper for the Falmouth Falcons

 **Word Count:** 2995 in MS Word, 2997 in GDocs

 _Write a story set entirely in the Shrieking Shack (Marauders Box)_

* * *

It's one of the first days in the shack, she thinks, although she doesn't recall the exact number. Perhaps it's been a week. Maybe a little more.

They're young and restless and both Gryffindors, so James suggests something stupid.

"How about the mirror?" he says. "We can talk to Sirius."

Lily, despite herself, agrees, and they settle down with the mirror in their hands, but all they see is─a wafting curtain? The two of them share a glance before Lily says, "Oh, that reminds me!"

Scrambling to rise from her cross-legged position on the floor, she collects a book; its pages have a sallow hue, and its spine looks bent and broken, but she opens it anyway. James is peering at her, not the book, but she allows it.

"I found this in the library. Here!" Her finger is pointing to one of the pages with a drawing of a full body mirror.

She's been to peruse the shelves, to dispel some boredom at having to lay low here─Order's orders─but now that she thinks about it, she was so obsessed with this one tome that she never looked any further.

"Mirror magic?" James looks from the page to Lily, who shrugs.

"It's just Muggle superstition, really. I didn't know the Shrieking Shack used to belong to Muggles─"

"Me neither," James interjects.

"─but since we have nothing else to do…"

Across from her, James cocks an eyebrow. "Bloody Mary?" Then he buries his nose in the book again. His glasses slide down, and he pushes them back up. "It says here she can either bring good or bad luck."

"Like I said," Lily says, slowly looking up, "it's just some silly superstition. Petunia never wanted to play, so…"

James, smirking, looks back at her and says, "Sure."

.ooo.

There's something wrong.

Lily lets a finger creep along the window frame, all splinters and dust, until it reaches the spider. It doesn't move.

Turning, she leans back against the creaking sill with one hand, the other one holding her tea. Lily looks down, her face falling. She must have nursed it for too long.

It's cold to the touch.

Her eyes fall on James, who's sitting in the faded floral-patterned armchair she pushed on the boys in seventh year when she thought the shack could use some colour. "I thought you were supposed to take care of the spiders?" she says, more statement than question, a small, ironic smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

He looks up at her, and she can see the dark circles under his eyes. He's tired of running─they both are─tired of not getting any rest. It's difficult to remember exactly when they got here, how long they've stayed, but she wants to leave. A part of her knows the price and is willing to pay it.

As she walks towards him, her face softens, and she lowers herself onto his lap, placing the tea by the foot of the chair. "I'm sorry," he sighs, closing his eyes.

Lily runs a hand through his hair, slowly.

That's when they hear footsteps from the floor above. Glancing at each other, they jump to their feet, wands drawn. James places a finger to his mouth, and Lily nods. By now, they're all habitual signs and instinctual behaviour, prowling the corridor outside the living room.

There is no sign of life, and Lily can feel the hairs on her arms rising. As they begin their ascent, she counts the steps. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. She's always counted them; she doesn't know why, but, at the moment, it feels like a familiar routine, something to hold on to.

Twenty-three. Lily, looking down, sees her right foot hanging in mid-air, ready to take another step, but there aren't any more.

Lily stares.

James, stopping, looks back at her, his eyebrows rising into a silent question.

She shakes her head. _Nothing_.

Signalling for her to go left, he turns his back on her, and the two of them go through every room upstairs, opening creaking doors and searching all the known hiding places.

When they meet back by the stairs, Lily says, "Nothing. Not as much as a chair was out of place." She looks back down the hallway as if she'll see something else, as if she's afraid someone's standing right behind her.

James takes a deep breath and tries to smile. "It must have just been the house we heard."

Walking down the stairs, she counts them again: twenty-four, as always.

.ooo.

There's no daylight inside the house. Everything, from the worn wood to the dismal light and the ragged furniture, is grey─dull, and sad, and grey.

The house is a living thing, Lily decides, and she runs her hand along the walls in the evenings as if stroking a beloved household pet. Every morning, she greets it like an old friend, smiling as the wind howls through it. It's rickety and charming, and Lily is beginning to feel at home.

Sometimes, however, she feels as if the house is rejecting her. The wind slams a door in her face just as she's about to enter a room. The floorboards croak as if in pain, and one time, they splinter beneath her. She only just manages to jump away before her foot goes through.

At night, it sings her a lullaby, and she clutches James' cold hands, scooting closer to him. They lie next to the fireplace for warmth, although the fire sometimes seems to go out almost immediately.

One night, just as they settle down beside it, the fire is extinguished with a sizzle. Lily, sitting up to lean on her outstretched arm, looks around in the darkness. It takes a while for her eyes to adjust to the surroundings, all colours washed out by the dusk, but, peering into the dark corners of the room, she sees nothing.

"Why does it do that, James?" she asks, struggling to keep her voice under control.

Beside her, he mumbles an incoherent reply and turns to lie on his side. His voice sounds deeper, almost as if it's two voices at once, and Lily hesitates for a second.

"What?" Placing a hand on his shoulder when he doesn't respond, she rolls him back towards her. "James?"

James squints and gives her a lazy smile. "Yeah?"

"What did you say?"

"What do you mean?" He rubs his eyes and yawns half-heartedly.

"Just now. I asked you why the fire went out." James looks behind him, and she thinks she hears him say _Oh_ , but she isn't sure.

When he meets her gaze again, he shrugs and says, "I don't know. I guess the wind must have blown it out."

"But it sizzled."

"Huh," is his only reply. He keeps looking at her, though, tentative and waiting. Lily thinks he wants to know that the conversation has ended, but she doesn't know that it has.

He seems to interpret her silence as an affirmative. Just as he turns around, they hear it. It's a terrible wail, and it echoes throughout the house, ricocheting off its ruined walls. It sounds like a baby crying, and Lily is already on her feet.

"Lily!" James exclaims. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him grabbing for her but coming up empty-handed. She can hear him swear mildly under his breath, but she doesn't stop.

Running out of the room, she turns left down the long corridor instead of right and up the stairs. Something about going upstairs unnerves her, but not as much as the sound of a baby, alone, inside this house.

James is right on her heels, and she can't help but run faster. Something about him chasing her doesn't feel right, and Lily begins to focus more on the breathing coming from behind than the cries coming from in front of her.

She hears him call her name, and the sound of it mingles with the cries, creating one big cacophony of sounds that shouldn't be here, not in this house, not in this world.

Crashing inside a room, she slams the door behind her and hears a _thump_. Her hands fly to her mouth, and she immediately reopens the door. "James?"

No one's in the corridor. "James?" she calls again.

 _Lily_ sounds like a coarse, grating whisper through the house, eerily displaced. She closes the door and walks slowly backwards. Her back hits something, and she spins, emitting a small gasp.

James.

"I thought I'd lost you," he says in a dead voice. She hasn't heard him enter the room, and he doesn't look as if he's been running. It isn't until now that she realises the crying has stopped.

Her eyes stray to what's behind him, and she jumps a little.

A big mirror.

.ooo.

In the evening, once they've decided that the wind through the corridors was playing a trick on them, Lily has a sudden urge to go look at the stairs. It's not something she can explain, it's something she feels like she has to do.

On the floor, James is already snoring away, always the heavy sleeper. Lily manages a smile despite what has happened today and tiptoes out of the room.

When she enters the hallway and looks left, it seems impossibly long. There's something wrong about the darkness that stretches it out into eternity, and Lily's mind is cooking up fables. She has to force herself to look the other way.

To her right, the stairs stretch upwards into eternity instead. She has to take a big gulp of air before taking the first determined step. It creaks, and she steps off, leaning backwards quickly to see if James is still asleep.

Then she tries again.

One. Breath. Two. Exhale. Three. Breath. Her arms are stretched out on either side, the palms of her hands running along the walls surrounding the staircase. Fourteen. Fifteen. Six─

"Ouch!" Lily jerks her hands away, looking closely at the plum of her index finger. A splinter has lodged itself into her skin, and she plucks at it carefully.

A pebble of blood forms, and a frown appears on her face, but she doesn't stop.

Twenty-three. Twenty-four. There.

She takes a step forward, her foot crashing into something.

Another step.

Twenty-five.

When she walks down, she counts it again. Twenty-five steps. A part of her is almost tempted to go upstairs again, just to be sure, but it feels like something is watching her.

Looking inside the living room, she realises it's James.

Smiling, she walks over to him, saying, "Did I wake you?" while lowering herself down beside him.

He suddenly grabs her arm and says, "Don't go looking for monsters under our bed, Lily."

A pause. Lily stares at him with widened eyes.

"She doesn't like it when you look at her."

.ooo.

"I'm going to the library."

Lily is trying to sound cheerful, but James still looks up at her with knit eyebrows. "Is something wrong?"

Trying to laugh it off, she says, "No, why would you think that? You know I love to go through old libraries, and I didn't see half the books in there last time."

James doesn't say anything, but she can feel his gaze resting on her long after she has exited the room.

The Shrieking Shack is older than she thought. Small hints here and there give away 19th century panels, 18th century chair feet, 16th century windowpanes. It's such a mix of the weird and wonderful, and the library is no exception.

Bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.

She has already decided. They can't stay in the house any longer. Something inside her breaks at the realisation, as if she is actually saying goodbye to a beloved pet who needs to be put down.

But first, she wants to know what she's up against.

Upon arriving, Lily drags out the old book and brushes through it. It doesn't say much about the game they played; it only covers it superficially, mentioning it as a thing that exists in Muggle minds but isn't an exact science.

Lily knows they should have been more careful.

Her fingers run over the spines of other books, their titles smeared, blurry, or non-existent. Her palm closes around one, and she toggles it out towards herself, feeling the weight of it fall into her hand.

It falls open on the index page, and Lily realises it's the same book. Her gaze travels up, and she grabs another, discarding the one she already has on the floor. This book has a green cover and the exact same index. She throws it away, dragging out another. Same index. Another. Same. One more.

Somewhere in the room, there's the sound of glass breaking.

Lily, her movements slow and deliberate, looks around the corner of the bookshelf. There, in the middle of the room, stands a full body mirror. Despite herself, she approaches it. Her reflection inside the mirror stands still, even as she moves in front of it, as if it's waiting for her. In the cracked mirror, six pairs of eyes stare at her from six different angles.

Surprise doesn't seem affordable anymore. Her heart beats hard in her chest, but she only registers it vaguely, as if this is all to be expected.

Her reflection winks. "Did you really think you stumbled on that book by mistake?"

Lily doesn't answer because it doesn't seem like the kind of question meant for answering.

"Thank you," her reflection says.

 _For what_ , Lily thinks.

"For inviting me into your home," her reflection answers. Its lips don't move, but Lily knows where the voice is coming from all the same. It sounds like James that night by the fire, deeper, as if the voice is layered.

"This isn't our home," Lily says in spite.

"It is now."

"We're leaving." It's meant to be a final word, but her reflection just laughs.

"Of course you are. It would be impolite of me not to invite you into my home in return, now, wouldn't it?"

Lily can see her mouth gaping in the mirror, and then her reflection moves forward.

It's not until her own fingers stretch out towards her that she finally starts running.

She tears through the house, but suddenly stops. A corridor ends blindly, and she has to turn around. In the next room, she can see a window, but as she comes up in front of it, it doesn't look out over the grounds; it looks only into another room.

Something has changed, but Lily can't stop, won't stop running. She calls for James, unsure if it's James who will answer her. She runs until she's wheezing, and then, out of nowhere: the staircase.

Lily, filled with relief, scans the living room quickly, but there's no sign of her husband. At least, from this part of the house, she's bound to be able to find her way out. Her eyes dart upwards, up to the second floor.

Taking a deep breath, she counts the steps.

Three. Four. Five. Sixteen. Seventeen. _Bump_.

Raising a hand to her head, Lily rubs the sore spot, looking up. A ceiling or a trap door hinders her further flight up, and she pushes and pushes, shrieking James' name.

Downstairs, she hears the unmistakable sound of glass shattering.

She has to go.

She already knows the way out.

A part of her screams not to go without James, but it's after her. She has to go.

Down the corridor, two doors to the right, one door to the left; the entrance to the Shrieking Shack shouldn't be far.

When she reaches the familiar scene, she's almost about to cry. Throwing open the door, however, her heart sinks.

It's been walled up.

A low, grumbling laughter falls from somewhere behind her, and she turns, her back to the wall.

"Lily," James says, tutting. "You can't run from yourself."

"James, please!"

He stalks forward like an animal and turns her gently to the side. There, in the entrance hall, is a full body mirror.

"We can be happy, Lily. A happy little family."

She whimpers and begs, flailing wildly, but her struggles are no match for her husband. Just as he pushes her into the mirror world, a curtain, _no_ , a _veil_ flashes before them, and her reflection stretches out its arms in a welcoming embrace.

.ooo.

The Daily Prophet _, October 31, 1998_

A new Ministry decree last June has allowed construction work to commence on what was formerly known as the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade village, close to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It is the hope of the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, that the house, long believed to be haunted by students, will serve the double purpose of both memorial and as a beacon to lost souls─a lighthouse, if you will.

"We'll keep building. We'll build for everyone who laid down their lives in the two Wizarding Wars. We'll build so that the wizarding world will never forget."

 _How many spirits do you believe have already gathered?_

"Some of our architects have already reported seeing numerous well-known war heroes."

 _And you believe them?_

"Of course."

According to the Minister, reports have been flooding in with allegations of spirits already nesting inside the house, making the continuous work unsteady and sometimes dangerous; fires will start by themselves, books are flung everywhere. One such incident now has one Ministry employee hospitalised. The workers have been asked not only to keep building the house, but also to seal prior entrances, to build extra rooms outside already existing windows, and to create an almost labyrinthine experience.

When asked whether this was a strategy to confuse the spirits and keep them in a perpetual purgatory as well as keep them safe, the Minister denied any further comments.

I asked the Minister whether he was afraid of ghosts. He turned around, looked at me darkly, and said, "No. Comment."

* * *

Prompts

 **Challenge Your Versatility:** Write a Jily horror story

 **The Fairy Tales Challenge:** Red Riding Hood - Write about Lily Evans


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